The 5th International Conference of the Asian Rural Sociological Association (ARSA) will be held in Vientiane in Laos, September 2014. Deadline for panel proposals is December 5 2013, and the deadline for abstract submission is January 15, 2014.
Download pdf for more information, or visit the ARSA website.
The latest special edition of the International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food (IJSAF) features a collection of papers on private food standards:
The 2013 Annual Meeting of the Rural Sociological Society was held at the Sheraton New York Times Square Hotel from 6-9 August. The theme was ‘An Injury to One is an Injury to All: Resistance and Resilience in an Age of Retrenchment’. This theme calls attention to the rural roots of solidarity and change in the context of global restructuring and political retrenchment. What can we learn from the struggles of rural peoples? How can we assist in the construction of local alternatives to the global that revitalize networks and enhance community and social well-being? Looking forward, how can the field of rural sociology continue to make contributions to public policy and civil society? Papers and sessions will deal with past and present rural social movements and with what we can learn from their successes and failures. Interest groups will be encouraged to develop sessions on the social bases of resistance and resiliency across place and space. The injuries endured by rural peoples across the globe—physical, social psychological, and socioeconomic—will be explored as a cross-cutting theme for scholarship and action.
The XXV Congress of the European Society for Rural Sociology was held in Florence, Italy, from 29 July – 1 August 2013. For more information please visit the website: http://www.florenceesrs2013.com/.
XVIII ISA World Congress of Sociology will be held in Yokohama Japan in July 2014.
For details of the Research Committee on the Sociology of Agriculture and Food (RC 40) program please visit the congress website.
On-line abstract submission will be open in the period June 3, 2013- September 30, 2013.
Associate Professor Lutgarda Tolentino who is currently at the Agricultural Systems Cluster, College of Agriculture, University of the Philippines Los Banos is about to take up a new role. From June this year she will be moving to WorldFish, a CGIAR research centre, as a Knowledge Action Researcher. She will be involved in R&D work for the CGIAR Research Program on Aquatic Agricultural Systems in the Philippines. AAS are diverse farming systems where families cultivate a range of crops, raise livestock, farm or catch fish, gather fruits, and harness natural resources such as timber, reeds and wildlife. Aquatic Agricultural Systems occur where the rural environment exists within or alongside freshwater flood plains, coastal deltas and inshore marine waters. They are characterized by their dependence on seasonal changes in productivity, driven by seasonal variation in rainfall, river flow and/or coastal and marine processes.
As the Program Brief 2011-14 of the WorldFish states, more than 700 million people depend on aquatic agricultural systems for their livelihoods, but the constraints they face mean that a third or more live on less than $1.25 a day. There is a concern within the community development profession that many of the international public goods such as improved crop varieties and management packages have made limited contributions to improving the lives of these poorest and most marginalized people. To overcome this situation CGIAR is moving away from supply-driven approaches (research-for-development) to a much more demand-driven approach (research-in-development) to create solutions to current constraints. The research-in-development approach employs participatory action research methodology to initiate and support processes that have the potential to transform these communities in a way which will help to overcome poverty.
The ‘making alternative food networks work: hitching the horse of critique to the wagon of improvement’ conference was held in Los Angeles, California, 9-13 April 2013.
This was the annual conference of the Association of American Geographers and the organisers received papers on how alternative food networks are making a difference locally and globally.
More information is available at the AAG Annual Meeting website.
‘Landgrabbing’ is occupying the minds of rural sociologists throughout the world.
How should we interpret the phenomenon of large-scale land acquisitions that are occurring, with increased frequency, in both developing and developed nations?
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On January 28th this year, Professor Philip Lowe, Professor of Rural Economy at the Newcastle University in Britain, received Sweden’s Bertebos prize for his significant contribution to sustainable rural development, land-use management and interdisciplinarity. The prestigious award, presented by the King of Sweden on behalf of the Royal Swedish Academy, is for ‘distinguished and practical research in food, agriculture, ecology or animal health’. Congratulations Philip!
Early conference information: The next IRSA Congress is to be held in Toronto, Canada, in August 2016 (dates are still tentative). Read more